Home Sweet Home

It's been almost a week since I arrived back in my good ol' Mountain Home, after a crazy semester at BYU! Already, I've gotten so much done concerning my mission. I am positive that nothing could have been better than having this month in between school and my MTC report date, dedicated to preparing.

Also while I'm here, I am back working at the Base Pool, which keeps me on a schedule and gets me a little extra money (any is a blessing!). I love teaching kids how to swim! It makes my day to see how excited they are to be in the water. :) And it also doesn't hurt that I get to be in the water myself! I've missed swimming so badly, and am pretty surprised at how smooth my strokes feel even after five months with no swimming. But how am I going to survive a whole year and a half?? I'll be jumping in the first pool I find once I'm back haha

Today I got to see my awesome little nephew Kru, and I felt like a million bucks with how excited he was to see me. My favorite thing would have to be him yelling "I love you" over and over as I'm leaving for work, and then later as he was heading out the door, he comes running back to me asking for a hug. I give him a big bear hug and let go, but he hangs on :) I love him!

Weirdest thing that happened this past week:
My friend Nora and I are checking all the fluids in my car, and as we are in the garage getting some coolant, we hear the sound of glass falling/crunching. I look over at the window, and stare at it with shock written all over my face. The window was broken! How did that happen? We never even heard a crash!

I walk around to the outside just to see what could have broken it when I see Nora, who had gone to investigate on the inside, staring at the ground. She slowly said, "Christina? You might want to come see this..."

In my mind I'm freaking out about how maybe the car was damaged or something, but as I come around the corner, I end up in the same bewildered position that Nora had been.

There, lying on the ground in the midst of broken glass, was a headless squirrel. No blood, no gore. Just a squirrel without a head.

And that's the end of the story. Or at least it leaves you in the same predicament we were. How in the world did that squirrel come flying through the window, when did it, and why did it have no head??!

Sadly, our detective skills were inadequate, and we never were able to figure it out. The good news to the story was that the missionaries were able to come over and board up our window, and we happened to have a board EXACTly the right size.

Wait, WHERE??

I have officially not kept my resolution to blog every week, seeing as how it's been three weeks since my last one. I have definitely thought about it though, so that should count right? But I can't NOT blog today, seeing as how I just found out what I'm going to be doing for the next two years of my life. !!

This past week, I was anxiously waiting for my mission call to come in the mail, and it almost drove me crazy! Since I live in Provo, mission calls usually arrive from Salt Lake by Wednesday. So I had my roommate check the mail, but it didn't come. I was pretty disappointed, but figured it was late because of the crazy snow we had that week. So I cancelled my call party and hoped it would be here on Thursday. 

Thursday came, and went. No call. By now I'm just a wreck, not able to concentrate on anything. Of course everyone is asking if I got it or where I'm going, and I just feel like crying as I tell them I don't know yet. 

As Friday rolls around, I'm feeling a little dejected as I check the mail. But it CAME! I ran inside and immediately opened it, had to read it three times before I really believed what I read, and then immediately tried to get a hold of my parents. However, my mom is in Oklahoma with my brother, and neither of the phones I called worked. So I'm sitting here without anyone to tell, or any way to tell, and I'm bursting! My brother finally answered his phone, but said he is at work, and he doesn't know when he will be back home, so I have to WAIT to tell ANYONE because I wanted my mom to be the first to know. 

My roommate came home, but I still couldn't tell her until my mom called which was pure torture for both of us. Finally my mom called at 7:30 pm (that's three hours after I opened my call) so I was able to reveal where I was going! I then proceeded to tell her and everyone else I came in contact with that I'm going to the...

Korea Busan Mission!!!

I cannot even wrap my mind around it. Everything about it is completely different from anything I have ever experienced or even wanted to experience: language, culture, people, food, weather, religion, everything! I'm freaking out! 

One thing that really gives me comfort, in assuring me that this is not completely random, is the fact that my dad has been to Korea before and even learned a little Korean himself. He was able to tell me that knowing Spanish really helps in writing how to pronounce Korean since Spanish vowels don't change like English vowels do. So that's great! At least I'll kind of be able to use it while I'm there. 

I have so many more thoughts going on in my head, but I'll save them for another day. Expect that the next couple posts will be related to this topic!

New Year's Resolutions

It's the NEW YEAR!! Happy first day of 2013! In honor of the holiday, I'd like to give my New Year's resolutions so that I'm not only held accountable to myself, but to you guys as well!

My goals for this year:

1. Read the Book of Mormon every day in English AND Spanish
2. Pray morning and night
3. Serve a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
4. Study and know Preach My Gospel before going on a mission
5. Blog at least once a week (my weekly letters on my mission blog will count)
6. Be able to pay for half of my mission
7. Get at least a 3.7 GPA this semester
8. Exercise at the gym at least three times per week
9. Swim two times a week
10. Give plasma to earn money, as much as I can
11. Become the best friend I can be to everyone
12. Finish Book of Mormon in Spanish
13. Write in my journal about the whole year-and-a-half that I've missed
14. Flat stomach
15. Touch someone, in a way that betters their life forever

This list is not necessarily in order of most to least important, just as they came to my mind. I wish everyone a happy and productive year, and the best of luck in completing your own resolutions! Don't give up too soon!

Missionary Letters

As my last day in Mountain Home for the break, I spent it with as many of my friends as I could. We were able to get a bunch of people together and play some games, and it was great getting to spend that time with them, some of which I'm not going to see for two years!

I was talking with my friend Kody, who is leaving on his mission in less than a month, about how I would try to write him but it probably wouldn't be very successful of an attempt. I have like six other people I am supposed to be writing, but I've maybe written them once, and that's it. I'm terrible at it! But I would like to at least show them that I'm at home rooting for them.

I also want to get better at it over the next half-year because pretty soon I will be the one hoping for a letter from my friends back home! And if I don't write my missionary friends, what right would I have in expecting my own letters? So I need to step up and get to writing.

I hope that I will be able to write on here the next couple days, but I may not as I will be in Sandy, Utah with my family. So forgive me if I miss a few days! One post you can count on coming though is my New Years' resolutions! I've already told you a couple: write missionaries and be a better friend. Oh and serve a mission! :D

Good Day

I finished my present to Mariah!! It looks and is awesome. Honestly, I'm jealous that she's going to own it. :P I will post pics once she gets it, so you can see how cool I am! lol But really, it took FOREVER, my poor fingers feel like they just played the guitar for hours, and my hand was cramping way before I was finished. I have no idea how people get so good and doing stuff like that: crafts, tables, cars, etc. I mess up so many times before I finally get it right, it would not be a good idea for me to try to make anything big.
----------

I also finally (hopefully) finished my medical section of my mission papers!! Joy to the world! I have been going back and forth nonstop this past week, at least once a day, often twice to three times. Mainly just because the doctor's office forgot something, then I did, then I had to get more stuff done, then more forgetting, etc. It was crazy! But it's done! The dentist and doctor are ready to send off their paperwork.
----------

I just watched this movie about the Mexico/America border called American Flyer. It brought back a lot of the stuff that I talked about in my last class-- Latin American Humanities. It's really neat to see that classes can make a difference in life. I was just looking through a dollar-movie rack and because it was about something I had just barely studied, I got the movie. It was pretty sad to see what their lives are like, but it taught a lot about what really goes on over there. Another good one that doesn't show as much of the violence is Under the Same Moon. Both of these are great movies worth watching if you care about your neighbors. They just want the freedom that we have, and I wish we could give it to them.

The Mission, God, and Me.

I had a great day today, and got some things done! In fact, I was able to go to my doctor's appointment for my mission papers! I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and my plan is to serve a mission for the year-and-a-half that young women are able to. I am so excited!

This will be me. \/  :)

Learn more about Mormon missionaries!

I can't turn in my paperwork until January, four months before I am actually able to leave, so I've still got at least a month before I find out where I go. Honestly though, I would be good with anywhere! I'm to the point where I really have a desire to go and serve Christ. I want to put my life on hold, and dedicate every waking hour to Him.

This may sound cliche to some people, because whenever I heard someone say that, I felt the same way-- it was just the same old thing, and couldn't possibly be what they were really thinking about. But over the past couple weeks as I've searched for what I am supposed to do, and whether going on a mission is the right path to choose, I have also gotten that desire! It's an answer to my prayers. I saw those other girls who only wanted to serve God, and I envied that. And now He's given it to me! I'm going, baby, and nothings going to stop me. 

---

On a completely different note, as I was on my way to play phone tag with some friends (which was SO fun, especially because we ended it with a nerf war :D) I found this awesome light display. I feel this may be something that one could only find in Mountain Home Idaho and I had a good laugh about it. Here's a representation of my hometown:

If you can't tell, it's a tractor made of Christmas lights. I honestly wonder where people get these ideas.. lol